Outlet Park (Tuttle Creek Lake)
This place has sites and nobody may sleep in them.Ask for camping here →
- Right now
- Taking bookingsSites offered on 15 of the next 15 nights read 15:34 UTC
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 6 notices
In the agency’s own words
Outlet Park is located below the Tuttle Creek Lake Dam on the Big Blue River. The park features five reservable group shelters, reservable from April 15th- October 31st. The park is open year round from 6am to 10pm. Outlet Park is a popular spot for local anglers and disc golf enthusiests. Visitors to the park can enjoy a range of recreation activities including hiking, fishing, picnicking, disc golf and wildlife watching. Keep reading
Recreation
Outlet Park is a populare day use destination. Located only a few minutes form Manhattan it makes a great destination for a picnic lunch with the family of a large group picnic.
Facilities
This year round day-use park offers five group picnic shelters. Shelters very in size and features available. All shelters have picnic tables, barbque grill.
Natural Features
Tuttle Creek Lake is situated in the northern portion of the Flint Hills, which are characterized by flat-topped hills with long, steep slopes, limestone rock outcrops and well-defined stream channels. The climate is typified by warm summers and moderately cold winters. More than 2 million guests visit Tuttle Creek Lake each year to enjoy the endless recreational opportunities provided by the vast lake and surrounding landscape.
What the agency tells you
Park hours 6 a.m.- 10 p.m.
Special event permits are required for activities out-side the day to day activities of the park this included but is not limited to the following amplified music, vendor sales, specialized apperatus (e.g. bounce houses, dunk tanks, rock walls, water slides etc), and groups that exceed facility carrying capacity. Permit request must be made 30 days in advace. Contract park office for information about special event permits (785)-539-8511 M-F 8am-4:30PM CST.
Park is subject to Title 36 regulation enforcement. Visit Title 36 to view the regulations.
Everything else this campground posts · 3
Additional park specific rules and regulations can be found on the campground map. Outlet Park Rules and Regulations.
Shelter use is subject to "public or mass gathering" restrictions as defined in active Riley County local health officer orders. Like wise users must exercise methods to protect themselves and other visitors from COCID-19 while visiting the Park as advised by the CDC and Riley County Heath Department. Shelters, Playgrounds, Tables, Grills, Trashcans and similar outdoor equipment is cleaned regularly, but not sanitized and offers no additional protection from COVID-19. No hand soap or sanitized is provided at the parks.
Don't Move Firewood: Protect your forests from tree-killing pests by buying your firewood locally and burning it on-site. Visit Dontmovefiewwood.org for futher informati on.
Facilities
- Toilets
- Flush Toilets · Vault Toilets
- FLUSH TOILETS on 2 of 5 campsite records / VAULT TOILETS on 1 of 5 campsite records, ACCESSIBLE VAULT TOILETS on 1 of 5 campsite records
- Drinking water
- Yes
- WATER SPIGOT on 2 of 5 campsite records, WATER (SEASONAL) on 2 of 5 campsite records
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake, River, Creek
- Disc Golf
- Hiking
- Picnicking
- Wildlife viewing
1 of 6 site-nights open this Friday and Saturdayread 15:34 UTC
The agency files 5 records here and marks every one of them day use, not overnight. On its own record there’s nothing here to spend the night in.
OpenBooked
Watch for a cancellation
Full? Watch it.
One email when a night opens, plus More Than Just Parks dispatches. Unsubscribe any time.
We read recreation.gov once an hour, at 40 minutes past, and write the first time a site in your window is free for the nights you asked for.
Scanners that check every few minutes exist, and most of them charge. This one is free, it reads the same calendar, and it won’t always be first.
Tell me when the season opens
Watch for the season to open
One email when the season goes on sale, plus More Than Just Parks dispatches. Unsubscribe any time.
We check once an hour, at 40 minutes past, and write the first time the agency has that season on sale.
Scanners that check every few minutes exist, and most of them charge. This one is free, it reads the same calendar, and it won’t always be first.
We make nothing when you book. The link goes straight to the government.
Every line of the receipt · 12
What you actually pay
Who keeps the booking fee
The agency’s own policy text says the reservation fee and the cancellation processing fee are “retained by the reservation service contractor”, and that a campground concessionaire will decline to refund them because “they did not receive these fees”. Recreation.gov is run under contract by Booz Allen Hamilton. What share of your booking fee the contractor keeps isn’t published in any federal dataset we can read, so we print no number for it. Our reporting on the contract →
How we know this receipt · 5
recreation.gov availability, read 15:34 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
5 records · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 5 mapped sitesAll 5 records
Toilet distances are OpenStreetMap’s, measured for 5 of the 5 sites listed. A site with no reading is unknown, never far.
| 1 | Cottonwood | day use | 540 ft | 83 ft | 303 ft | $40 |
| 1 | Shelter 1 | day use | 287 ft | 90 ftPhiel Creek | 798 ft | $40 |
| 1 | Shelter 2 | day use | 287 ft | 190 ft | 511 ft | $40 |
| 2 | Shelter 3 | day use | 784 ft | 217 ft | 155 ft | |
| 2 | Shelter 4 | day use | 840 ft | 346 ft | 262 ft |
The agency files 5 more records here that aren’t sites for the night. It files them as day use. They’re in the table above, marked for what they are, and none of them is counted as a site.
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the phone number
Where it is
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Manhattan, KS
Typical weather
Typical October night 42°F, day 68°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 16°F, below freezing. Bring a bag rated colder than that, and expect ice in the water bottle.
Daily high and lowDays with 0.10 in or more
A normal is the 1991-2020 average for the month, not a forecast: about half of all Julys are colder than the July line. The seven-day forecast above answers the other question.
The land, and who answers for it
who answers for it · a letter you can send
Who answers for this land
Outlet Park (Tuttle Creek Lake) is in Kansas’s 1st congressional district. Its representative, Tracey Mann (R), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: F. See every public-lands vote →
Who can change it · 3
The agency’s own record files sites here and marks every one of them day use. The draft asks whether any could open to overnight camping, and if not, why.
- The member who votes the moneyTracey MannU.S. Representative · Kansas’s 1st district
- Your senator, on the same appropriationJerry MoranU.S. Senator · Kansas
- Your senator, on the same appropriationRoger MarshallU.S. Senator · Kansas
Read the draft, or change the wording
Asks them to put the same question to the agency in writing.
Subject Outlet Park (Tuttle Creek Lake) has sites, and nobody may sleep in them
Dear Tracey Mann, I’m a constituent in Kansas’s 1st district. Outlet Park (Tuttle Creek Lake), Kansas carries 5 records on the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’s own file, every one of them marked day use rather than overnight. I’m asking you to put one question to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in writing: would they consider opening any of these sites to overnight camping, and if not, why not? Road trips and camping on public land are part of how this country knows itself. It’s where a lot of people meet the place they live in for the first time, and it has never been something you had to be well off, or well organised six months in advance, to do. Sent about Outlet Park (Tuttle Creek Lake) (Kansas) via campanac.com
Asks them to put the same question to the agency in writing.
Subject Outlet Park (Tuttle Creek Lake) has sites, and nobody may sleep in them
Dear Jerry Moran, I’m a constituent in Kansas. Outlet Park (Tuttle Creek Lake), Kansas carries 5 records on the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’s own file, every one of them marked day use rather than overnight. I’m asking you to put one question to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in writing: would they consider opening any of these sites to overnight camping, and if not, why not? Road trips and camping on public land are part of how this country knows itself. It’s where a lot of people meet the place they live in for the first time, and it has never been something you had to be well off, or well organised six months in advance, to do. Sent about Outlet Park (Tuttle Creek Lake) (Kansas) via campanac.com
Asks them to put the same question to the agency in writing.
Subject Outlet Park (Tuttle Creek Lake) has sites, and nobody may sleep in them
Dear Roger Marshall, I’m a constituent in Kansas. Outlet Park (Tuttle Creek Lake), Kansas carries 5 records on the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’s own file, every one of them marked day use rather than overnight. I’m asking you to put one question to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in writing: would they consider opening any of these sites to overnight camping, and if not, why not? Road trips and camping on public land are part of how this country knows itself. It’s where a lot of people meet the place they live in for the first time, and it has never been something you had to be well off, or well organised six months in advance, to do. Sent about Outlet Park (Tuttle Creek Lake) (Kansas) via campanac.com